1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for ensuring performance of Wi-Fi. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method for minimizing degradation in performance of legacy Wi-Fi when a legacy Wi-Fi function and a Wi-Fi Peer-to-Peer (P2P) function are used simultaneously.
2. Description of the Related Art
Wireless communication based on legacy Wi-Fi was developed to provide Internet access through Access Points (APs) and is thus unable to provide direct communication among devices supporting a Wi-Fi function. Therefore, an advanced function called Wi-Fi P2P or Wi-Fi Direct has been proposed in order to provide a direct communication function among Wi-Fi devices.
Wi-Fi P2P technology, proposed by the Wi-Fi Alliance, is compatible with the legacy Wi-Fi, and allows devices supporting the Wi-Fi function to access each other for communication without need of an AP.
Although the inter-device direct communication function is similar to the function provided in technology such as Bluetooth, the Wi-Fi P2P function is rapidly replacing Bluetooth because Wi-Fi P2P has many advantages over Bluetooth in terms of coverage and data rate. For example, while Bluetooth 4.0, the latest Bluetooth standard, supports a maximum coverage of 100 m and a maximum data rate of 24 Mbps, Wi-Fi Direct supports a maximum coverage of 200 m and a maximum data rate of 300 Mbps.
Wireless communication based on the legacy Wi-Fi includes a scheme called Ad-hoc mode, which supports direct connection. Actually, however, the Ad-hoc mode is rarely used due to its many disadvantages such as security vulnerabilities, increase in power consumption, and transmission bandwidth limitation of 11 Mbps.
Because the Wi-Fi P2P function takes into account the compatibility with the conventional Wi-Fi function or the legacy Wi-Fi function, a user may attempt a Wi-Fi P2P connection while using the legacy Wi-Fi function. For example, the user may request execution of the Wi-Fi P2P function for the purpose of file sharing, while his or her mobile terminal is operating in a legacy Wi-Fi station mode where it may be provided with a communication function by being connected to a specific AP.
However, in the legacy Wi-Fi station mode, if the Wi-Fi P2P function is executed, performance of the legacy Wi-Fi may be degraded. Therefore, there is a need for a method capable of preventing performance degradation of the legacy Wi-Fi during the execution of the Wi-Fi P2P function while the legacy Wi-Fi is in use.
Since an understanding of the overall operation of the Wi-Fi P2P should precede an understanding of the degradation in performance of the legacy Wi-Fi, the cause of problems and a means for addressing the problems will be presented based on the below-described details for implementing the present invention.